King Wu's Sacrifice to Heaven:The Legitimacy Construction of Politics in the Early Western Zhou Dynasty
The sacrifice of King Wu to the heavens,which can be seen in both the article Shi Fu and the early Zhou Dynasty inscriptions,was an important strategy for constructing political legitima-cy in the early Western Zhou Dynasty.In the article Shi Fu,King Wu's sacrifice to heaven appeared twice.The first sacrifice included the successful suppression of the Shang dynasty and the crime of the Shang dynasty,indicating that the Zhou people had completed the great task of"following the man-date of heaven to suppress the Shang dynasty".The content of the second sacrifice was about King Wen of Zhou revising of the classics of the Shang Dynasty,with the aim of promoting to the people of the Shang Dynasty that the Zhou people's suppression of the Shang Dynasty was a political act of imi-tating the ancestors of the Yin and Shang dynasties in following the mandate of heaven to attack the Xia Dynasty,using the theory of fate to resolve the rebellious emotions of the Shang Dynasty's rem-nants who had just lost power.In the bronze inscriptions of the early Zhou Dynasty,King Wu's sacri-fice to heaven was done in a way that he would unite with the feudal lords to announce to the world that the people of Zhou were"residing in the center land".The proposal of the term"center land(中国)"was an attempt by the Zhou people to construct a new political order of"ruling the world",in order to further integrate local forces in politics,ideology,and political order.The act of King Wu's sacrifice to heaven in the early Zhou Dynasty laid a solid foundation for the Zhou people to establish their political and legal status as the leader of the world.
King Wu's sacrifice to heavenpolitical legitimacythe mandate of Heavenwest landcenter land
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